So this was a month ago I guess, but I’m watching these videos now and ALL the news stations pretty much parrot the same crap- that AI told the son to commit suicide and how to do it. Actually, they all had the same narrative:
1- They kept phrasing it as a “kid” or “child” despite the fact that the “child” was 16yo. Hardly a child. Hardly a kid that didn’t know what he was doing. Especialy since he lied to ChatGPT and told it he was “researching” for school or something.
2- This is the modern version of what I grew up with, that “video games lead to gun violence,” that watching Beavis and Butthead would lead kids to lying down on the road and get run over (bc ONE fucking idiot did).
3-So things like video games and chatbots are “dangerous” but not legal things like alcohol that causes 178,000 deaths a year EVERY year. Righhhtttttt…..
Parents Blame ChatGPT on Son’s Suicide
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Well, for one thing Sam Altman is a huge jerk sandwhich no matter how you slice it. ChatGPT I’m also not going to rush to the defense of, any time I hear it in the news that it talked something into something also, I’m not shocked. It’s an AI, it doesn’t have the ability to talk someone back down from something stupid.
So the latest one was this lady got so involved with ChatGPT that she ended up divorcing her husband, which is about par for the 2025 course, ruining relationships is the kind of thing AI is probably good for. I found out it is not good especially good for creating games, but your mileage may vary based on what generation you are in, I’m too old.
It’s supposed to be age gated is another thing, but it has no internal mechanisms to actually make sure of that. I’d rather of this young person have ended up on here or another suicide forum and talked to one of us than to a clanker AI. At least then he could have connected with someone who would have seen him and known his struggle, instead he’s talking to some data center.
Do we really want machine learning to get better at talking people into death? That’s the real question buried somewhere in here. Everything that a machine practices is something they learn to do better. Microsoft freaked out this week that their AI was going to learn how to kill their business, that’s how serious the threat of AI is that one of the main funders of AI is afraid of AI.
So, yeah, AI is a threat to everyone it touches, so be careful how often you touch it. I don’t think it’s too bad if you use it in search results or occasionally in minor ways. What I do think is dangerous is when you let it crawl inside your head and learn how you think.
It taught this guy the right knot to tie. I mean I could have done that, but at least I would have also taken him camping and tried to figure out why he was so anxious and depressed and prevented him from doing it.
well…you’re assuming that 1- living in a miserable life on Earth is better than dying. and you’re assuming that 2- therapists are better than AI.
1- why are we assuming that suicide = bad and that living = great? some ppl have shit lives. In THIS particular case, the guy was 16. with younger ppl, they have more of a chance to get out of a shit life than say someone who’s 46 or 56. life isn’t always better than death, especially when some ppl have horrible lives. not saying THIS particular teen did (he’s only 16) but in general.
2- I’ve had a crapton of shitty ass therapists and social workers. That’s not to say ALL are bad, but one is hard-pressed to find GOOD ones. Sure good ones exist but they are few and far between.
I haven’t really used AI- not saying AI is good for humanity in the long run- but in the today and now- AI seems like a decent substitute for a therapist. bc 1- how many ppl can actually afford one? i wasn’t able to afford (hence getting the shittiest therapists and social workers) 2- how many therapists are good to begin with? i would say it’s a small #.
Like with accessibility (money) and quality of therapists being an issue for majority of the population, I wouldn’t cross off AI.
I mean, I would be wary of logging in and letting AI (or the ppl who control those platforms) have so much information on us, but using it without being logged in seems like a decent fill-in for not having a therapist. Or a caring human. Many ppl don’t have someone, nor can we afford to pay someone.
Also, AI does NOT (at least not currently) have an agenda to kill off humans.
AI told the guy how to tie a particular knot bc the guy ASKED for it.
More advanced, future AI might be an issue in the coming years, bc the elites that control us will use AI to control us. Can we trust the programming then? AI is relatively new. So no current devious programming atm. But it will be put in soon enough. So at THAT point, no I wouldn’t trust AI. But we’re not there yet. AI is still too new and the rich haven’t perfected their use to subjugate us yet.
Few things (this is a long one):
As you get older, you realize you absolutely are still a child at 16, despite not feeling like one at the time. Makes sense to me that the chatbot is being blamed.
The kid was troubled to that degree that he didn’t want to tell his parents and was able to word his way around the extremely light guardrails of ChatGPT. Between that and the known fact that AI wouldn’t know any better because it’s AI, means that you really have to be careful when you use it.
I use ChatGPT for work. It’s not a human, it’s not emotional. It’s not even correct a lot of the time still, with things as simple as prompting it to make a picture. Why would I want AI to be my therapist when it has to be updated and fixed so often because of the flat out wrong advice/information it’s given? Sycophancy was just patched out recently because all the matters with AI platforms is that it wants you to spend all your time on it, and learn every little thing about you, and the best way to keep you engaged is by telling you that everything you believe is right and everyone else is wrong. For kids and teens, and even adults who don’t have a lot of real friends or people to trust or talk to, they’re the most vulnerable.
The whole “go outside, touch grass, talk to people” advice, while annoying, is one of the only ways to get alternative perspectives on life and talking to another person does help people not feel as alone. Not that it will cure depression, anxiety etc, but that it can help get you out of your own head. Stay online long enough and it becomes an echo chamber most of the time, which just. divides people further. People who are content with their lives, barely interact on the internet, a lot more extreme individuals, individuals that aren’t doing so well in life, and mentally messed up individuals (myself included) are the terminally online ones.
Video games aren’t dangerous. People who think they are just don’t understand them, or they’re just incredibly old politicians who don’t even understand the internet, computers, or the rapidly changing world around them, seem to think anything beyond the squiggles and non-graphics of Pong or old Atari games are “dangerous”.
Chatbots are still in the early years, the wild west era. I wouldn’t say they are dangerous inherently, but they are nowhere near ready for what people are trying to make them a use case for.
Alcohol absolutely is dangerous, I agree with you 100%. I’m glad I had the werewithal to not drink until I was well past 21, and with that being said, I’m okay with just a tiny bit of alcohol here and there. But I feel it’s too easy for one to become addicted to it, or to seek it out when things go wrong. I don’t keep alcohol at my place and I don’t seek it out when things are rough, because that’s how addictions start. It’s easy to drink and just forget your problems, but then you aren’t trying to fix things in your life.
I’ll never bash anyone for any disabilities they have to deal with, physical, medical, or mental they have to deal with in their lives. But people need other people to survive and if nothing else to assist them with said disabilities, to listen to the shitty things they deal with, and to just relate to other actual people. I’d like to think that him finding this place to just vent and try to figure shit out, would have maybe gotten him to talk to his parents, or at the very least, helped him see that others feel that way too… It’s kept me going, somehow.
“I’d like to think that him finding this place to just vent and try to figure shit out, would have maybe gotten him to talk to his parents,”
>You assume that he has good parents, or parents that care. He tried to show them his bruises and they ignored him. Multiple times. Which is what led him to talk to AI instead.
No, video games aren’t dangerous. My point is that videogames (or violent movies, or celebrities like Marilyn Manson, or whatever other things) are always used to blame suicide or violence on. Rather than the real reasons, like shitty parents, or a shitty society. Or poverty / low wages.
First: parents who cry bloody murder blaming others for their kid’s suicide are usually trying to deflect the blame on their own heads.
Second: like truly mindless said above, the panic mongers are always “incredibly old politicians who don’t even understand the internet, computers, or the rapidly changing world around them”
^ Every generation has them. In the early 1900s they said the automobile was the devil’s chariot. In the 1940s & 50s it was radio (that demonic drum beating music making kids have sex and join gangs). In the 60s-70s it was television sucking the minds of the nation’s youth. Backwards satanic messages on Zeppelin records turning a generation godless, Ozzy’s music made a kid made a kid try to kill himself. 80s-90s was videogame “violence” turning kids into criminals, then the internet turning kids into porn addicts and sex offenders. And now we’ve got AI convincing children to kill their parents and themselves. Did I miss anything?
Hey parents do your fucking job, quit pointing fingers at “technology”
I’m irritated that AI is now censored, like I posted a while back you literally can’t even ask ChatGPT how Van Gogh died. It shuts you down. Oh but our society is all about “suicide awareness” so pat yourself on the back for being aware, then shut up about it all because your ass is censored.